Lenape Park (now the Brandywine Picnic Park) was a magical place when I was a kid in the 1960s. We'd go as a family, and while we were heading down Route 52 I remember straining to catch the first glimpse of the wooden roller coaster over the trees. I went on the roller coaster, only once, with my Dad, and was terrified. I much preferred the big swings and the way your stomach would drop at the top of the arc, and the wonderful carousel, where you really could grab a brass ring (if you were taller than me, that is). My favorite attraction, though, was the "Fun House," with its cackling monsters and freaky mirror and the trick slide that propelled you out at the end.
I'm not sure such a park exists anymore. Nothing was "monetized"; there weren't tie-ins with fast-food restaurants or TV or movie characters. You didn't get a discount if you brought a certain number of soda labels. The only music came from the carousel, punctuated by the screams of the roller-coaster riders.
And on the way home we'd stop at Baldwin's Book Barn. Back then they had glass jars of penny candy (and it really was penny candy), and each of us kids would leave with our own little brown bag of nonpareils, orange slices and multicolored sugar "dots" stuck to white paper.
There are some memory-inducing photos of Lenape Park at http://www.oldwilmington.net/oldwilmington/lenape-park.htm (thanks to Jim Dugan for the link).
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